Sunday, August 12, 2007

#68 -- Desire After Dark by Amanda Ashley

From the PublisherSexy vampires, dangerous devotion, unparalleled romance, no one does desire after dark like bestselling author Amanda Ashley. Now, in her enthralling new novel, she explores a passion as smoldering as it is risky… Vicki Cavendish knows she should be careful. After all, there’s a killer loose in town—one who drains women of blood, women with red hair and green eyes just like her. She knows she should tell police about the dark, gorgeous man who comes into the diner every night, the one who makes her feel a longing she’s never felt before. The last thing she should do is invite the beautiful stranger into her house… Cursed to an eternity of darkness, Antonio Battista has wandered the earth, satisfying his hunger with countless women, letting none find a place in his heart. But Victoria Cavendish is different. Finally, he has found a woman to love, a woman who accepts him for what he is—a woman who wants him as much as he wants her…which is why he should leave. But Antonio is a vampire, not a saint. What is his, he’ll fight to keep and protect. And Victoria Cavendish needs protecting…from the remorseless enemy who would make her his prey…and from Antonio’s own uncontrollable hunger…

My OpinionWell I don’t know where to start. I enjoyed this book. It was romance through and through. The problem that I had was that I had gone out and picked up the two books that preceded this one since I am anal about reading books in order. I really enjoyed both of them—‘Shades of Gray’ & ‘After Sundown’. While those two books were very much tied together and had wonderful characters, this book, which is very loosely tied to the first two and could be read as a stand alone, had characters that to me were not as interesting. The plot also was pretty much the same as the previous two books, but with new characters, so it was like reading the same story over again, but with the names changed.

Don’t get me wrong. If I run across any more of Amanda Ashley’s books I will probably read them. They are good romances. But I probably won’t actively seek them out as I understand that most of them are just the same plot, different characters. While the plot was great the first time around with ‘Shades of Gray’ and still interesting since the characters were really likeable in ‘After Sundown’, by the time I got to ‘Desire After Dark’, I had had my fill.

There were several elements to the story that just did not make sense. One example is when Vicki is going to rescue Antonio from Falco. She just so happens to run into a guy who not only sells her a gun but spends an hour training her to shoot it. While they are in an empty lot practicing they just so happen to run into a group of 4, what I would describe as hoodlums, who volunteer to go with Vicki and help her out. They don’t know her, have no clue what she is going to do, but they go along for the ride. Pretty far fetched. There are a few instances like that where you just go, wait a minute, what is going on here! But put that aside and the story is okay. Lady Katherine is a fun character and we do get to revisit Edward Ramsey a bit. Worth an afternoon to read, but nothing fantastic~